Uncov­er­ing a new wave of inno­v­a­tive Greek documentaries

With the pan­dem­ic hav­ing refash­ioned our every­day real­i­ty into some­thing ever so frag­ile, a sense of some­thing lost looms over us. This over­ar­ch­ing sense of loss fea­tures promi­nent­ly in the dynam­ic and ver­sa­tile col­lec­tion of 151 short and fea­ture length doc­u­men­taries that com­prise the line-up of the 23^rd Thes­sa­loni­ki Doc­u­men­tary Fes­ti­val. Apply­ing the ques­tion of what has been lost to the process of cin­e­mat­ic cre­ation, the line-up con­tains indi­vid­ual inno­va­tions but, like all good fes­ti­vals, comes with a sat­is­fy­ing sense of cohesion.

After a migra­tion to online screen­ings for 2020, this year the fes­ti­val adopts a hybrid for­mat of screen­ings in open-air cin­e­mas and ter­races, as well as an online com­po­nent that runs between June 24 and July 4, while also pre­sent­ing a new pod­cast sec­tion to explore the affini­ties between the gen­res. Of the mas­sive line-up, we’ve decid­ed to focus on five Greek doc­u­men­taries, each with diverse sub­ject mat­ters and that dwell in raw meth­ods of sto­ry­telling and craft to explore new forms of care, human­i­ty and community.

First up is Chris­tos Bar­bas’ Through the Win­dow Glass, Three Acts which offers a cin­e­mat­ic imprint of inti­ma­cy – a tes­ta­ment to the forg­ings of fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty that arise in the face of strug­gle. Doc­u­ment­ing three weeks in a vol­un­tary enclo­sure from the POV of staff of a care home in the Athen­ian sub­urb of Agios Ste­fanos, we’re met with a com­pelling endeav­our of uncon­di­tion­al sup­port for the needs of the elder­ly in a time of unprece­dent­ed iso­la­tion. We are then con­front­ed with peo­ple who long for life, beau­ty and excite­ment, despite the con­fines of old age and soci­etal neglect.

Speak­ing of soci­etal neglect, the threat to democ­ra­cy posed by Gold­en Dawn, the most noto­ri­ous far-right pop­ulist par­ty in Greece (and Europe at large), is chron­i­cled through the trag­ic mur­der of the young anti-fas­cist rap­per Pav­los Fys­sas in Angélique Kourou­nis’ Gold­en Dawn: a Pub­lic Affair. The back­bone of the doc­u­men­tary con­sists of a six-year long tri­al against the crim­i­nal organ­i­sa­tion, while trac­ing forms of resis­tance against the ide­o­log­i­cal plague posed by neo-nazism with­in con­tem­po­rary Greek soci­ety. With social and polit­i­cal ten­sions run­ning rife, does reg­u­lar jus­tice suf­fice? How can we col­lec­tive­ly resist the rise of a new wave of fas­cism that co-opts left-wing tac­tics to appear ​‘for the people’?

The thread of per­son­al and mar­gin­al sto­ries told through a broad polit­i­cal can­vas also becomes the the­mat­ic essence of Mar­i­an­na Kakaounaki’s Invis­i­ble. The film­mak­er stages a direct and inti­mate inquiry into the lives of migrants, their feel­ings of immea­sur­able loss and their prac­tices of preser­va­tion. Flee­ing from a wave of per­se­cu­tion by the Turk­ish gov­ern­ment due to their sup­port of the Gülen move­ment, Ebubekir and Gon­za Kara, along with their three chil­dren are pushed towards exile. As well as the Kara fam­i­ly, the doc­u­men­tary fol­lows Ahmet, a for­mer doc­tor who in an attempt to fight for migrant vis­i­bil­i­ty, has begun to feel more at home in Athens. This inher­ent­ly polit­i­cal nar­ra­tive of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, pre­car­i­ty and dis­en­fran­chise­ment, shows that home is not some­where you leave behind. When in exile, home is a place in which you’re always arriving.

An image of Athens is sim­i­lar­ly depict­ed through the mar­gin­al per­spec­tive with­in Eva Stefani’s Days and Nights of Deme­tra K. The cam­era acts as an active wit­ness that delin­eates a por­trait of Deme­tra, an Athen­ian sex work­er and pres­i­dent of her union. With­in a par­tic­i­pa­to­ry and non-nar­ra­tive char­ac­ter study, Demetra’s mag­net­ic and dis­tinc­tive per­son­al­i­ty is chart­ed through­out a peri­od of twelve years, in tan­dem with a por­trait of a city that changes form due to the dev­as­tat­ing effects of a finan­cial cri­sis. Wounds that can­not heal even with the pas­sage of time, as well as dis­course sur­round­ing sex work, exploita­tion and desire are por­trayed through the way time acts as a struc­tur­al ele­ment with­in the film, with Deme­tra watch­ing old­er footage as if she were read­ing the pages of an old diary.

Offer­ing a pro­file of his moth­er Gabriela, direc­tor Domenikos Igna­tiadis engages in the par­tic­u­lar­i­ties and pecu­liar­i­ties of per­son­al expe­ri­ence, craft­ed through its syn­the­sis with archival mate­r­i­al. Gabriela: The Ger­man with the Bicy­cle sees Igna­tiadis as an auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal essay­ist; an effort to rec­on­cile with his mother’s desire to flee out of despair from suf­fo­cat­ing and unsus­tain­able envi­ron­ments, in a dou­ble move of self-destruc­tion and per­se­ver­ance. A jour­ney from the Ger­man metrop­o­lis of Stuttgart to the Greek agri­cul­tur­al vil­lage of Alexan­dreia in Imath­ia traces the life of some­one always in motion, always run­ning towards the unknown; a woman of grit who had the expec­ta­tion of build­ing a real fam­i­ly, some­thing she’d been deprived of since childhood.

For more info on the 23^rd Thes­sa­loni­ki Doc­u­men­tary Fes­ti­val vis­it film​fes​ti​val​.gr/​e​n​/​d​o​c​u​m​e​n​t​a​r​y​-​f​e​s​tival